Medical Malpractice

• Connecticut Places Hartford Hospital On Probation

  James Sabatini | February 11, 2008 11:38 AM | 0 CommentsNew Haven , CT

  Hartford Hospital, the state's second-largest facility in terms of licensed beds, is on probation for a year after complaints arose about its emergency and operating rooms. State officials discovered 28 complaints over a two-year period based on patient surveys. The Department of Health found serious issues during the course of its investigation. There were a number of patient care issues on a...

• Emergency Room Patients Waiting Longer

  James Sabatini | January 15, 2008 10:05 PM | 0 CommentsWaterbury, CT

  Patients seeking urgent care in U.S. emergency rooms are waiting longer than in the 1990s, especially people with heart attacks, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday. The longer waits affect insureds and uninsureds equally. They found a quarter of heart attack victims waited 50 minutes or more before seeing a doctor in 2004. Waits for all types of emergency department visits became 36 percent...

• Vermont Hospitals Will Not Seek Payment For Certain Medical Errors

  James Sabatini | January 04, 2008 4:38 PM | 0 CommentsHartford, CT

  Vermont hospitals recently adopted a policy not to seek payment from patients or insurance companies if certain rare errors are made that result in serious harm. The 14 Vermont hospitals will follow a uniform system that officials said will make the hospitals more accountable. The policy will cover eight, serious medical errors including surgery performed on a wrong body part or on the wrong...

• More Lawsuits Filed Against St. Francis Hospital For Failing Protect Patients From Sexual Abuse By Dr. Reardon

  James Sabatini | December 11, 2007 1:06 PM | 0 CommentsHartford, CT

  In the latest lawsuit filed against St. Francis Hospital, the victims allege that the doctor accused of sexually abusing his child patients used a gun to threaten the children and raped some of the victims. The lawsuits accuse St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford of failing to protect them from Dr. George Reardon. He was a chief of endocrinology at the hospital and practiced...

• More Lawsuits Filed Against St. Francis Hospital For Failing To Protect Patients From Sexual Abuse By Dr. Reardon

  James Sabatini | December 11, 2007 1:06 PM | 0 CommentsHartford, CT

  In the latest lawsuit filed against St. Francis Hospital, the victims alllege that the doctor accused of sexually abusing his child patients used a gun to threaten the children and raped some of the victims. The lawsuits accuse St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford of failing to protect them from Dr. George Reardon. He was a chief of endocrinology at the hospital and practiced...

• Connecticut Medical Malpractice Statute of Limitations

  James Sabatini | December 06, 2007 10:24 PM | 0 CommentsNew Haven , CT

  Connecticut law requires that a medical malpractice lawsuit be initiated within two years from the date when the injury is first sustained or discovered or in the exercise of reasonable care should have been discovered. The law also requires that it be initiated within three years from the date of the act or omission complained of (CGS § 52-584). (The courts typically refer to the two year...

• Florida Reform Did Not Drop Medical Malpractice Rates

  Shannon Weidemann | November 11, 2007 5:41 PM | 0 CommentsWaterbury, CT

  Laws were passed in Florida in 2003 to reform the medical malpractice insurance industry. Rates rose 98 percent in some specialization during the time period between 1998 and 2002. Doctors were hoping the reform would lower their medical malpractice rates. A new study has shown that claims have gone down but rates have only decreased slightly. It is hoped that rates will continue to decrease...

• Defibrillator Leads Recalled by Medtronic

  Shannon Weidemann | November 11, 2007 4:45 PM | 0 CommentsWaterbury, CT

  Medtronic has issued a product recall for Sprint Fidelis Defibrillator leads because of possible fractures in the lines. The defibrillator leads have been on the market since 2004 and the FDA did not require human testing before gaining approval. The model was close enough to a previous one to not warrent it. Medtronic did perform short-term testing on humans before seeking FDA approval...

• Salem Man Awarded $210K for Medical Malpractice

  Shannon Weidemann | November 11, 2007 3:53 PM | 0 CommentsNew Haven , CT

  A Salem man had surgery on his gall bladder in August 1999. He was in pain following the surgery and visited with two doctors. Both of the doctors failed to diagnose a bile leak and he needed to have emergency surgery to fix the problem. He sued for medical malpractice and the jury awarded him and his wife $210,000. Kevin Cummings said he first went to Dr. Lakshmanan about pain following the...

• Heart Device by Thoratec Recalled

  Shannon Weidemann | November 11, 2007 3:28 PM | 0 CommentsNew Haven , CT

  A heart assistance device manufactured by Thoratec has been recalled because the device may function incorrectly. The defective medical device has been used at 87 hospitals in the United States and around the world since 2004. The device is surgically implanted in patients and it may become bent. Thoratec notified the hospitals of potential problem in an Oct. 19 recall notification letter,...